Microsoft Previews New Windows Live Messenger Beta

Steve Ballmer just previewed the new Windows Live Messenger beta during his "Five Dimensions of Cloud Computing" speech to students at the Universidade de Sao Paulo in Brazil. Windows Live Messenger has over 320 million active consumers every month who send 10 billion messages to one another every day, a Microsoft representative tells WebProNews.

"Customers are overwhelmingly looking for more efficient and personalized ways to communicate with the people that matter to them most," she adds, highlighting the following features of the new beta:

– Richer conversations with people that matter most through enhanced photo and video sharing, HD video chat, video messages, games & with one-click access not only to share content on their PC but also content on SkyDrive, Facebook and coming from Bing search results.

– Messenger is bringing together consumers social life by pulling in updates from top social networks as well as letting friends share updates from other websites they visit. Messenger will pull in all the social updates sitting in a person’s Hotmail inbox.

"The new Messenger will provide a great way to have more meaningful conversations with the people consumers care about most while also bringing together their social networks and sharing updates, cutting through the clutter, and staying up to date with their favorite friends," the rep says. "Messenger integrates into the things consumers are already doing, so they can stay in touch not only from their PC, but also from across the Web and their mobile phone."

The new Messenger has privacy settings that let consumers choose from three default privacy profiles. The default will never expose personal data to the public, according to the company.